Monday, February 02, 2009

The Cranium and Jaw in 3/4 Head Drawings Starring Anderson

I'm not sure if anyone remembers the other day when I mentioned that cartoonists often leave out the area on the head between the face and the back of the head and jaw.

Well I do it myself when not thinking about it.I drew this while watching TV in the dark and was concentrating on Anderson's positive features-the shape of his head, his eyes, nose, mouth chin and ears. I drew the head shape first then filled it in with his features. Mistake!

I didn't leave enough room at the left side for the negative space. Many of us have a tendency to leave out spaces in our drawings. We just fill the silhouette up with positive shapes.

On a 3/4 head we think that both sides of the head are the same shape and that is completely wrong. It's only the same on both sides when you look at a head straight on. When you see a 3/4 angle then the one side of the head is made up of different parts of facial anatomy than the other. They aren't mirror images. Cartoonists tend to draw the cheek and chin on both sides of the 3/4 head - which is wrong. we only see a sillo of cheek on the farther side of the face. On the closer side, we see the jawline, the temple and a lot of space between the face and the back of the head.

I knew I made the same mistake on that drawing of Cooper I posted the other day and felt terribly guilty about it.So over pizza I redrew him from memory, being careful to map out the space at the left side of the drawing. I still didn't leave enough room for the jaw. When I do a final model, I will use construction and get it right.This morning over breakfast I dashed out another and realized a secret about Anderson. He has no eyebrows. If you leave them off altogether it looks more like him.He also has a very interesting skull shape in profile, something like the above. It's a crappy drawing, because I hadn't drawn his profile before, so I'll get at learning a better one soon.Here I tried drawing another news personality from memory. Can you guess who it is? He reminds me of a Gerry Anderson character.

Speaking of caricatures, Marlo is much better than me and she is selling her wares over here. Be the first on your block to pick up a nice print!www.marlomeekins.blogspot.com

When I was about 8 years old, there were several other boys forming a drawing clique and they wouldn't let me join. One day, I noticed their speech bubbles had the text climbing up the sides, or spilling out onto the background. I had just figured out that you had to write the words first, THEN draw the bubble, and I showed off this skill to them very often. Needless to say, I turned them down whenever they asked me to join, the jerks.

Whenever I see Anderson Cooper on TV I think of those aliens from the movie "This Island Earth" Not that he looks like them, but he has that "you're not one of us, are you?" qualities that is immediately off-putting.

Okay John. I admit, this has nothing to do with your post once again, but I did really enjoy the discussion of Anderson Cooper's face and eybrows. I guess I will keep writing until you send George Liquor out on the streets to rough me up.

Anyway, In your header graphic (new_donaldbastard.jpg), it's a great pose, but the arms and legs have twinning to a degree. What's your take on this? Why does it work despite that? Is it because one leg and arm are farther back in space?